Inversions (9 page)

‘And what did you learn today?’

‘More things about equal triangles, and some history, about things which have happened.’

‘I see,’ Perrund said, settling the boy’s collar back down and patting his hair flat again.

‘There was this man called Narajist,’ the boy said, licking his fingers free of sugar dust.

‘Naharajast,’ DeWar said. Perrund motioned him quiet.

‘Who looked in a tube at the sky and told the Emperor. . .’ Lattens screwed up his eyes and peered up at the three glowing plaster domes lighting the chamber. ‘Poeslied ‘

‘Puiside,’ DeWar muttered. Perrund frowned severely and tutted.

‘ there were big fiery rocks up there and Watch Out!’ The boy stood and shouted the last two words, then sat down again and leant over the box of sweets, one finger to his lips. ‘And the Emperor didn’t and the rocks killed him dead.’

‘Well, it’s a little simplified,’ DeWar began.

‘What a sad story!’ Perrund said, now ruffling the boy’s hair. ‘The poor old Emperor!’

‘Yes,’ the boy shrugged. ‘But Daddy came along and made everything all right again.’

The three adults looked at each other and laughed. ‘Indeed he did,’ Perrund said, taking away the box of sweets and hiding it behind her. ‘Tassasen is powerful again, isn’t it?’

‘Mm-hmm,’ Lattens said, trying to squirm behind Perrund in pursuit of the box of sweets.

‘I think it might be time for a story,’ Perrund said, and pulled the boy back to a sitting position. ‘DeWar?’

DeWar sat and thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not much of a story, but it is a story of sorts.’

‘Then tell it.’

‘It is suitable for the boy?’ Huesse asked.

‘I shall make it so.’ DeWar sat forward and shifted his sword and dagger. ‘Once upon a time there was a magical land where every man was a king, every woman a queen, each boy a prince and all girls princesses. In this land there were no hungry people and no crippled people.’

‘Were there any poor people?’ asked Lattens.

‘That depends what you mean. In a way no, because they could all have any amount of riches they wanted, but in a way yes, for there were people who chose to have nothing. Their hearts’ desire was to be free from owning anything, and they usually preferred to stay in the desert or in the mountains or the forests, living in caves or trees or just wandering around. Some lived in the great cities, where they too just roved about. But wherever they chose to wander, the decision was always theirs.’

‘Were they holy people?’ Lattens asked.

‘Well, in a way, maybe.’

‘Were they all handsome and beautiful, too?’ Huesse asked.

‘Again, that depends what you mean by beautiful,’ DeWar said apologetically. Perrund sighed with exasperation. ‘Some people see a sort of beauty in ugliness,’ DeWar said. ‘And if everybody is beautiful there is something singular in being ugly, or just plain. But, generally, yes, everybody was as beautiful as they wanted to be.’

‘So many ifs and buts,’ Perrund said. ‘This sounds a very equivocal land.’

‘In a way,’ DeWar smiled. Perrund hit him with a cushion. ‘Sometimes,’ DeWar continued, ‘as people in the land brought more of it under cultivation’

‘What was the name of the land?’ Lattens interrupted.

‘Oh . . . Lavishia, of course. Anyway, sometimes the citizens of Lavishia would discover whole groups of people who lived a bit like the wanderers, that is, like the poor or holy people in their own land, but who did not have the choice of living like that. Such people lived like that because they had to. These were people who hadn’t had the advantages in life the people of Lavishia were used to. In fact, dealing with such people soon became the biggest problem the people of Lavishia had.’

‘What? They had no war, famine, pestilence, taxes?’ Perrund asked.

‘None. And no real likelihood of the last three.’

‘I feel my credulity being stretched,’ Perrund muttered.

‘So in Lavishia everybody was happy?’ Huesse asked.

‘As happy as they could be,’ DeWar said. ‘People still managed to make their own unhappinesses, as people always do.’

Perrund nodded. ‘Now it begins to sound plausible.’

‘In this land there lived two friends, a boy and a girl who were cousins and who had grown up together. They thought they were adults but really they were still just children. They were the best of friends but they disagreed on many things. One of the most important things they disagreed about was what to do when Lavishia chanced upon one of these tribes of poor people. Was it better to leave them alone or was it better to try and make life better for them? Even if you decided it was the right thing to do to make life better for them, which way did you do this? Did you say, Come and join us and be like us? Did you say, Give up all your own ways of doing things, the gods that you worship, the beliefs you hold most dear, the traditions that make you who you are? Or do you say, We have decided you should stay roughly as you are and we will treat you like children and give you toys that might make your life better? Indeed, who even decided what was better?’

Lattens was shifting and wriggling on the couch. Perrund was trying to keep him still. ‘Were there really not any wars?’ the child asked.

‘Yes,’ Perrund said, looking concernedly at DeWar. ‘This may all be a little abstract for a child of Lattens’ age.’

DeWar smiled sadly. ‘Well, there were some very small wars very far away, but to be brief, the two friends decided that they would put their arguments to a test. They had another friend, a lady, who . . . very much liked both of the friends, and who was very clever and very beautiful and who had a favour which she was prepared to grant either of them.’ DeWar looked at Perrund and Huesse.

‘Either of them?’ Perrund asked with a small smile. Huesse looked at the floor.

‘She was broad-minded,’ DeWar said, and cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, it was agreed that the two cousins would present their arguments to her and whoever lost the argument had to leave and let the favour be granted to the other one alone.’

‘Did this third friend know about the cousins’ amusing agreement?’ Perrund inquired.

‘Names! What are the names?’ Lattens demanded.

‘Yes, what are they called?’ Huesse said.

‘The girl was called Sechroom and the boy’s name was Hiliti. Their beautiful friend was called Leleeril.’ DeWar looked at Perrund. ‘And no, she did not know about the agreement.’

‘Tut,’ Perrund pronounced.

‘So, the three met in a hunting lodge in the high, high mountains-’

‘As high as the Breathless Plains?’ Lattens asked.

‘Not so high, but steeper, with very sharp peaks. Now’

‘And which cousin believed in what?’ Perrund asked.

‘Hmm? Oh, Sechroom believed that one should always interfere, or try to help, while Hiliti thought it best to leave people be,’ DeWar said. ‘Anyway, they had good food and fine wine and they laughed and told each other stories and jokes and the two friends Sechroom and Hiliti explained their different ideas to Leleeril and asked which she thought was right. She tried to say that they were both right in their own ways, and that sometimes one was right and one wrong and sometimes the other way round . . . but eventually Sechroom and Hiliti said Leleeril had to choose one or the other, and she chose Hiliti, and poor Sechroom had to leave the hunting lodge.’

‘What was it Leeril was going to give Hiliti?’ Lattens asked.

‘Something sweet,’ DeWar said, and, magician-like, produced a crystallised fruit from his pocket. He presented the sweet to the delighted boy, who bit happily into it.

‘What happened?’ Huesse asked.

‘Leleeril found out that her favours had been subject to a bet and she was hurt. She went away for a while’

‘Did she have to go away?’ Perrund asked. ‘You know, the way girls in polite society sometimes have to, while nature takes its course?’

‘No, she just wanted to be somewhere else, away from everybody she knew.’

‘What, without her parents?’ Huesse asked sceptically.

‘Without anybody. Then Sechroom and Hiliti realised that perhaps Leleeril had felt more for one of them than they had imagined and that they had done a bad thing.’

‘There are three Emperors now,’ Lattens said suddenly, munching on his sugary fruit. ‘I know their names.’ Perrund shushed him.

‘Leleeril came back,’ DeWar told them, ‘but she had made new friends where she had been, and she had changed while she had been away, and so went away again, to stay. As far as is known she lived happily ever after. Sechroom became a soldier-missionary in the Lavishian army, to help fight in the very small, very far-away wars.’

‘A female soldier?’ asked Huesse.

‘Of a sort,’ DeWar said. ‘Perhaps more missionary, or even spy, than soldier.’

Perrund shrugged. ‘The balnimes of Quarreck are said all to be warrior women.’

DeWar sat back, smiling.

‘Oh,’ Huesse said, looking disappointed. ‘Is that all?’ she asked.

‘That’s all for now.’ DeWar shrugged.

‘You mean there’s more?’ Perrund said. ‘You’d better tell us. The suspense might be too much to bear.’

‘Perhaps I’ll tell you more some other time.’

‘What about Hiliti?’ Huesse asked. ‘What became of him after his cousin left?’

DeWar just smiled.

‘Very well then,’ Perrund chided him. ‘Be mysterious.’

‘Where is Lavishia?’ Lattens asked. ‘I know geography.’

‘Far away,’ DeWar told the boy.

‘Far away across the sea?’

‘Far away, over the sea.’

‘Further than Tyrsk?’

‘Much further.’

‘Further than the Thrown Isles?’

‘Oh, a lot further than that.’

‘Further than . . . Drizen?’

‘Even further than Drezen. In the land of make-believe.’

‘And are the mountains sugar hills?’ Lattens asked.

‘All of them. And the lakes are fruit juice. And all the game animals grow on trees, ready cooked. And other trees grow their own tree-houses, and catapults and bows and arrows grow on them like fruits.’

‘And I suppose the rivers run with wine?’ Huesse asked.

‘Yes, and the houses and the buildings and the bridges are made of diamond and gold and everything precious.’

‘I’ve got a pet eltar,’ Lattens told DeWar. ‘It’s called Wintle. Want to see it?’

‘Certainly.’

‘It’s in the garden, in a cage. I’ll fetch it. Come on, let’s go,’ Lattens said to Huesse, pulling her on to her feet.

‘Probably time he had his run round the garden anyway,’ Huesse said. ‘I shall be back soon, with the unruly Wintle.’

DeWar and Perrund watched the woman and the child leave the chamber under the watchful eyes of a white-clad eunuch in the high pulpit.

‘Now then, Mr DeWar,’ Perrund said. ‘You have delayed long enough. You must tell me all about this ambassador assassin you foiled.’

DeWar told her as much as he felt he could about what had happened. He left out the details of exactly how he had been able to respond so promptly to the assassin’s attack, and Perrund was too polite to press him further.

‘What of the delegation that came with the Sea Company’s ambassador?’

DeWar looked troubled. ‘I think they knew nothing of what he intended. One of them did, maybe. He had charge of the drugs the assassin had taken, but the rest were ignorant. Naive innocents who thought this was a great adventure.’

‘Were they sorely questioned?’ Perrund asked quietly.

DeWar nodded. He looked down at the floor. ‘Only their heads are going back. I’m told at the end they were glad to lose them.’

Perrund put her hand briefly on the man’s arm, then drew it away again, glancing at the eunuch in the pulpit. ‘The blame lies with their masters who sent them to their deaths, not with you. They would not have suffered less if their plan had succeeded.’

‘I know that,’ DeWar said, smiling as best he could. ‘Perhaps it might be called professional lack of empathy. My training is to kill or disable as quickly as possible, not as slowly.’

‘So are you really not content?’ Perrund asked. ‘There has been an attempt, and a serious one at that. Do you not feel this disproves your theory that there is someone here at court?’

‘Perhaps,’ DeWar said awkwardly.

Perrund smiled. ‘You are not really appeased by this at all, are you?’

‘No,’ DeWar admitted. He looked away. ‘Well, yes; a little, but more because I think I have decided you are right. I will worry whatever happens and always put the worst construction on it. I am unable not to worry. Worrying is my natural state.’

‘So you should not worry about worrying so much,’ Perrund suggested, a smile playing about her lips.

‘That is more or less it. Otherwise one might never stop.’

‘Most pragmatic.’ Perrund leant forward and put her chin in her hand. ‘What was the point of your story about Sechroom, Hiliti and Leleeril?’

DeWar looked awkward. ‘I don’t really know,’ he confessed. ‘I heard the story in another language. It doesn’t survive the translation very well, and . . . there was more than just the language that needed translation. Some of the ideas and . . . ways that people do things and behave required alteration to make sense, too.’

‘Well then, you were mostly successful. Did your story really happen?’

‘Yes. It really happened,’ DeWar said, then sat back and laughed, shaking his head. ‘No, I’m jesting with you. How could it happen? Search the latest globes, scour the newest maps, sail to the ends of the world. You will not find Lavishia, I swear.’

‘Oh,’ Perrund said, disappointed. ‘So you are not from Lavishia?’

‘How can one be from a place that does not exist?’

‘But you are from . . . Mottelocci, wasn’t it?’

‘Mottelocci indeed.’ DeWar frowned. ‘I don’t recall ever telling you that.’

‘There are mountains there, aren’t there? It is one of the . . . what are they called, now? The Half-Hiddens. Yes. The Half-Hidden Kingdoms. Unreachable half the year. But a small paradise, they say.’

‘Half a paradise. In spring and summer and autumn it is beautiful. In winter it is terrible.’

‘Three seasons from four would be sufficient to please most people.’

‘Not when the fourth season lasts longer than the other three put together.’